Yeah first half is pretty good as far as trashy alternative rock/metal goes, but god damn it trails off with Micro Cuts (painful) and two flamenco-flavoured tracks in a row and then a cover song and then that breathless, overblown closer Megalomania... and I was led to believe this album was "flawless."

Holy SHIT, that makes so much sense now I think about it, especially on this album. The only thing I would add is that on Absolution they got quite a few of those ideas right (they got some right here too)

Yeah there were some examples of them getting it right (I think the best examples are actually on Black Holes), but gat damn another band could've put riffs like Citizen Erased and New Born to better use

Hmmm...Black Holes has Knights of Cydonia and Exo-Politics I spose, and Citizen Erased and New Born rule face imo (easily the best here), but tbh persuading Matt Bellamy's ego to channel his ideas through another band is a dead cause

Why couldn't they have just made an awesome space-rock album without everything being pushed to ultimate levels of cheese and tastelessness, Showbiz levels of restraint but Erased and Hyper Music sorta style

The unrestraint is one of the things I love about a lot of Muse's music. Whilst they have done it a bit much over the last few albums, in right doses (This and Abso) it works brilliantly.

Also, I'd hardly call Megalomania 'epic for epic's sake', given how soft the verses are, the lovely cello coutermelody in the second verse, and the brilliant vocal layering in the last chorus - there's loads to appreciate other than the epic-pipe-organ-evil-genius-chords that are amazing anyway.